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Welcome to the Canon D-SLR photography service centre

Workshop
72 | PhotoPlus July 2014
PROBLEM #33
W
hether its a wet weekend in
Bournemouth or a fortnight
under canvas in Kenya, taking
a trip somewhere new will do good things
for your photography. Youll get to spend
some quality time with your camera, youll
feel motivated to take plenty of pictures,
and youll be able to capture some
memorable family moments.
Travel photography often involves a bit
of everything, from landscapes and nature
to family portraits and night photography,
and that has implications for the gear you
take. If youre ying, the determining factor
in what youll take and what youll leave
behind is your carry-on luggage limit. Never
put a camera, lenses or ashgun in your
checked baggage unless youre condent
it wont arrive at the other end in pieces if
it arrives at all. Keep your expensive and
fragile kit with you as hand luggage, leaving
your tripod to run the hold baggage gauntlet
alone. When it comes to carry-on weight
and size allowances, long-haul ights are the
most generous. Budget airlines are usually
very tight, and its worth checking your
carriers restrictions on its website.
While certain holidays demand specic
gear, such as a telephoto lens for a safari,
the core kit for most trips will be a single
camera body and a standard zoom. A lens in
the 24-70mm range is a great all-rounder for
a full-frame camera, wide enough to tackle
sweeping landscapes and city views but
with moderate telephoto reach for head-
and-shoulders portraits. Canons 24-70mm
f/4 IS and 24-105mm f/4 IS lenses are solid
examples of all-purpose travel options.
On APS-C cameras, your 18-55mm kit lens
or similar gives a similarly versatile range.
Extend your range
If space and budget permit, then consider
adding an ultra-wide lens (something
equivalent to a focal length of 17-40mm is
ideal) and a telephoto zoom (such as the
classic 70-200mm) to your kit. With these
three lenses youll be able to cover the vast
majority of shooting opportunities. If you
want to shave more weight, then taking just
Keep your camera with you as hand
luggage, leaving your tripod to run
the hold baggage gauntlet alone
How do I prepare for
travel photography?
From the gear you really need
to how to shoot from a plane,
heres our ultimate Canon
D-SLR holiday guide
Activate the Live View grid
display and electronic level
to help prevent wonky
horizons when shooting
video or stills
STEP BY STEP
It can be hard to see detail on the rear screen in sunny conditions. Heres how to improve the view
How to set up your LCD when its sunny
PhotoPlus July 2014 | 73
Brightness
A factory-fresh camera is
set to an average level of
brightness. Some EOS D-SLRs
will automatically adjust this
according to the conditions, but
wed suggest setting brightness
to max in the menu when sunny.
Highlight alert
In blazing sun, it can still be
hard to see the important
histogram detail when youre
reviewing shots. To make it
easier to spot potential exposure
errors, open the blue playback
menu and enable Highlight alert.
Check and adjust
Clipped highlights will now
be indicated by ashes of
black during playback this is
easier to see if you use the
full-screen view. If key detail is
clipped, use negative exposure
compensation and reshoot.
Battery life
Increasing the LCD
brightness uses up more
battery juice, so take steps to
reduce power consumption
in other areas. For instance,
choose a low setting for the
Auto Power Off feature.
a single superzoom might prove a better
option. The large range of focal lengths that
these lenses cover, typically 18-200mm,
is certainly tempting, although they are
compromised, both optically and in terms
of maximum aperture. You may have to
increase the ISO to get a fast enough shutter
speed for handheld photography, and that
can degrade the quality of your pictures.
Essential accessories
In terms of accessories, again, keep things
light. Lens hoods, plenty of memory cards
and a spare battery should top your list,
followed by a lens and sensor cleaning kit,
a ashgun and a couple of lters. Wed
recommend a UV lter if youre shooting at
the coast in order to protect a lenss front
element from salt spray. If youve yet to
invest in a circular polarising lter, a holiday
provides the perfect excuse to do so,
enabling you to capture picture postcard
blue seas and skies. Circular polarisers are
available for both screw-in and square lter
systems, and cost anywhere between 30
to 215. If you choose the screw-in type, buy
one that ts the lens with the largest lter
thread in your collection, and use step-up
rings to attach it to your other lenses. If
youre using a square lter system then
youll just need an adaptor to make the
circular polariser t the mount.
When it comes to camera settings for
travel photography, wed suggest settling
on a set-up that you can use in grab shot
Memory matters
Aside from ensuring you have a regular source of
power to recharge your camera battery, and that
your gear is insured, the biggest pre-ight worry is
invariably memory card related. How much storage
do you really need? And the answers always the
same: double what you think, particularly if youll be
recording video. You can take a laptop with you, and
religiously transfer shots from your memory card
every evening, but thats the last thing youll want to
do if youre trying to cut
down on weight. Dont
rely on using just one
large-capacity card
if it corrupts, you
could lose all your
shots. Take a few
8Gb or 16Gb cards
with you instead.
Weve all been there:
running out of space
on our last memory
card with no way to
back up the images.
Here are some
options that can help
you squeeze more
shots on there:
Shoot JPEGs You can
get around four times
as many JPEGs on a
memory card as you can
Raw les. Or some EOS
D-SLRs can shoot smaller
M-Raw or S-Raw les.
Shoot in Single drive
mode Its easy to end up
with unwanted duplicates
when youre shooting in
Continuous mode.
Erase unwanted images
Youll have to be ruthless.
Delete shots as you go, or
use your D-SLRs Rating
or Protect Image options
to highlight the keepers,
then choose Erase
images in the Playback
menu to remove the rest.
Dont format the card
though, as youll lose the
protected images as well.
Saving space
On family holidays in the sun, taming deep
shadows and bright highlights in blazing sunshine
is a challenge, and there are a few things you can
do to capture better exposures. First, shoot Raw
so that you can pull more detail out of the shadows
and highlights in post-processing. If you shoot
JPEGs, make sure the Auto Lighting Optimizer
is activated, as this automatically adjusts the
brightness and contrast. Where possible, use the
Auto Exposure Bracketing option to take three
versions of a shot at different exposures you
can then choose the best one later, or combine
two or three images in Photoshop. If your camera
has an HDR mode experiment with this, although
be prepared for at-looking images. Finally, use a
blip of ash to open up shadow detail in portraits.
Controlling contrast
74 | PhotoPlus July 2014
Custom
shooting
Custom shooting, available on EOS
D-SLRs from the 60D upwards, enables
you to save your own bespoke camera
setup to the mode dial. The 6D, 7D and
5D Mk III have more than one C mode,
enabling you to save setups for the
different shooting situations youre likely
to encounter street portraits, indoor
scenes or landscapes for example and
instantly switch between them.
Circular polarising lters reduce glare and
cut through reections, revealing detail
under the surface of water and removing
distracting shine from glass and foliage.
They also boost colour and contrast,
making them a good choice when youre
photographing landscapes or architecture,
or when shooting at the beach, where they
will darken blue skies and saturate the sea.
Polarisers are made from two pieces of
glass, and you rotate the front element
to increase or reduce the strength
of the polarisation. The effect is most
pronounced at 90 degrees to the sun,
although you may nd the sky becoming
too dark when the lter is used at its
strongest setting look at the scene
through the viewnder or on the Live
View screen, and slowly turn the lter
until you get the desired effect.
Top travel kit: circular polariser
AUTO LIGHTING
OPTIMIZER: DISABLED
AUTO LIGHTING
OPTIMIZER: HIGH
Brightens up shadows
without looking too artificial
WITHOUT POLARISER
WITH POLARISER
Select Custom shooting mode (5D Mk
III and 6D), or Camera User Setting
(60D, 70D and 7D) to save the settings
Avoid using a polariser when shooting
skies with very wide lenses, as the effect
will be uneven. Rotate the lter to reduce
the strength or remove it altogether
Uninspiring, at-looking colours
Richer colours and a punchier result
Select the mode number C1, C2 or C3
on the mode dial if applicable
PhotoPlus July 2014 | 75
5 hints and tips for the
3 Exposure
compensation
The 1200D enables you to
set exposure compensation
of up to +/- 5 stops, but the
viewnder scale only runs
to +/- 2 stops. If you need
more compensation, use
the Quick Control screen.
2 Movie hiccups
When playing back a movie
you may notice it pausing.
This is likely to be because
the autoexposure system
was adjusting to a big jump
in brightness. To avoid this,
select Manual exposure in
the movie menu.
4 DoF preview
Many D-SLRs have a depth
of eld preview button to
enable you to see how
much of a scene will appear
in focus. The 1200D doesnt,
but you can assign this
function to the SET button
via Custom Function IV: 9.
1 Finer metering
The 1200D doesnt offer
spot metering, so if you
want to base your exposure
on a small area of the picture
use partial metering, which
covers approximately 10 per
cent of the image at the
centre of the viewnder.
Canon 1200D
Every month we highlight an EOS camera or
type of lens, and provide essential advice to
help you get more from your gear
mode and from which you can make
exposure adjustments almost instinctively
as required. While most Canon D-SLRs have
a snapshot option built in the green Scene
Intelligent Auto option on the mode dial
wed avoid this, as it offers limited or zero
control over shooting settings. The ash
may re when you werent expecting it (and
where ash isnt allowed in museums, for
example), and the combination of aperture,
shutter speed and ISO can leave your holiday
shots looking like smartphone snaps.
Program mode is a step up. It also sets the
aperture and shutter speed automatically,
but you can choose a different combination
of the two by rotating the control wheel.
Learning which direction to spin the wheel
for a faster/slower shutter speed or wider/
narrower aperture can take time though, and
Program mode can be a bit ddly with ash.
Av all-rounder
Aperture Priority (Av) mode often makes for
a better default mode. You have more control
over the depth of eld, and when Av mode is
used in combination with Auto ISO you can
be condent the camera will automatically
set a shutter speed thats fast enough to
deliver sharp handheld pictures. Advanced
EOS cameras such as the 5D Mk III and 70D
enable you to set a minimum shutter speed
when youre using Auto ISO.
Aerial
photography
5 No card, no shot
By default, you can press
the shutter release without
having a memory card in
the camera. To ensure that
you cant do this, set the
Release shutter without
card option in the rst red
shooting menu to Disable.
HDR SHOOTING FLASH
Use fill flash when
the sun is strong
and overhead
Avoid using this
with m
oving
subjects
Whether youre shooting from an
easyJet window en route to your
destination, or lucky enough to see
the local sights from a helicopter,
there are a few techniques that will
improve your aerial shots. First, use
a fast shutter speed to keep things
sharp in the region of 1/2000 sec
for a chopper, and at least 1/500 sec
for a plane. Shoot in Av mode, and
select the narrowest available
aperture to get everything in focus;
if this doesnt give you a fast-enough
shutter speed, up the ISO. Manually
focus at innity, and dont lean
against the fuselage or window, as
this will transmit more vibrations
than simply
handholding;
if youre in a
helicopter,
lean out of
your seat too.
Use a stabilised lens to improve
your chances of sharp results

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